Sweetest Sorrow (Forbidden Book 2) (24 page)

Until last night.

Dante knew what his sister had meant, because maybe he wasn't in love,
yet
, but goddamn if it wasn't happening to him. If he wasn't careful, Gabriella would claw her way beneath his skin and she'd stay there.

"So who was it? Who'd you nail last night?"

"None of your business."

"Come on…"

"Ask me again and next time it'll be your sister."

"Ah, man, that's
foul
."

Umberto's sister was young, barely legal. He was protective over her, wouldn't even let Dante
talk
to her because of his hit-it-and-quit-it reputation. The threat worked, because Umberto dropped the subject, rambling about how he'd spent his night with the woman he met at the bar, filling the air with his incessant chatter.

They drove to a small suburb down near the city of Elizabeth, deep in the heart of Brazzi territory. They'd entered their terrain the second they crossed the state line, something they didn't do often, being as they never had reason. Brazzi stayed out of their affairs as much as possible, choosing to stay out of New York as long as
New York
respected their territory.  You needed something there—you called, you asked, you negotiated, and they made it happen.

But as Umberto pulled the car into a small neighborhood after nightfall, blacking out the headlights, visibly nervous, Dante realized that hadn't gone down this time. "I'm guessing the Brazzis don't know we're here."

"Primo didn't want to risk letting them in on it," he replied, parking the car along the curb in the first spot he came to. "Since Matteo was living out here, you know, they must've been protecting the kid. Can't trust nobody these days."

Tell me about it.

The house was in a cul-de-sac just down the street, tucked in between similar cookie-cutter houses, a typical suburban neighborhood. The place was dark with blinds covering the windows. The grass hadn't been mowed in weeks. A sprinkler ran on the lawn across the street, a few lights peeking out from neighboring houses. Dante was on edge, his gaze darting around for signs of trouble, as Umberto fiddled with the front door, attempting to break into the house. He was dressed in all black, carrying a black bag, while Dante hadn't been prepared for this kind of work, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt that glowed under the moonlight.

Dante grew impatient, shoving him out of the way to take over before the guy resorted to violently kicking the door in. "How many times do I have to show you how to do this?"

Sighing, Umberto stood back, watching as Dante picked the lock on the front door. When Dante got it open, he held his breath, expecting an alarm to go off.

Nothing
.

Umberto slipped around him, heading inside. Dante followed, closing the front door. A beam of light cut through the front room as Umberto retrieved a flash light from his bag, handing it to Dante, before pulling out one for himself.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Dante asked, his flashlight glossing over the furniture.
Plain
. There was no other way to describe it. No pictures hung on the walls, nothing personal around the room.

Dust tickled Dante's nose.

"Positive," Umberto said.

"How'd you find it?"

They'd sought Matteo for years. While they suspected he could've been in New Jersey, suspicion was far from having an actual address.

"Tracked it down using GPS," he answered. "These new phones, you know, they have that feature enabled, in case you ever lose it or someone steals it, so you can track it down, see where it went. I told your father about it a while back, told him that's why I use burners. I don't want anything linked to me that can be monitored."

"So, what, he found a way to track Matteo's phone?"

"No, he tracked your sister's."

Dante pointed the flashlight at Umberto, illuminating him.

"She came here a couple times," Umberto continued. "She mostly frequented that place you went to in Soho, you know…
The Place
. Guess they hung out at the bar. But we saw some hits in Jersey and figured it had to be something for her to come into Brazzi territory, so we put the pieces together, and here we are."

Dante lowered the beam of his flashlight. "Matteo was staying in Soho, in the apartment above that bar."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

Dante didn't elaborate. He didn't owe anybody an explanation.

Looking away, he strolled into the kitchen, glancing around the quiet house. Umberto set off in the opposite direction, disappearing down a hallway. The place was stocked with essentials, but nothing personal could be found. Nothing more than a safe house, Dante gathered, as he checked cabinets and drawers. It wasn't really anybody's
home
. He moved to the dining room, finding a table with a few chairs, and plopped down in one as he shined his flashlight around.

"There's nothing here," Dante called out. "This is a waste of time."

Not worth the trouble, either. They had enough problems. Why risk enraging the Brazzis for crossing borders and invading territory?

"You're right." Umberto appeared from the hallway, heading straight to the front door. "Let's get out of here."

Dante followed him, pausing in the living room when the slight scent of something infiltrated his nose. It smelled
rotten
. "Do you smell that?"

"I smell nothing," Umberto said, "but we've got to get out of here before somebody catches us."

A car pulled onto the cul-de-sac then, headlights flashing toward the window, making Umberto freeze. He cut his flashlight out at once, while Dante pointed his at the floor. Strolling to the window, he pushed two slats apart to peek through the blinds. A black car pulled into the driveway across the street, cutting the engine after parking in the garage. As the garage door came down, the man strolled toward the front porch of the house, swinging his keys around his fingers, in no rush to get inside. He was too far away for Dante to get a good look at him.

"You seriously don't smell anything?" Dante asked, shining the flashlight at Umberto. It wasn't a strong odor, but it was distinct.

Umberto shook his head, but under the glow of the light, Dante saw his nose twitch. Damn right he smelled it. Dante shined his flashlight down the hall, about to make his way there when another car sped into the cul-de-sac, whipping into the driveway of the house right next door. Dante turned off the flashlight, glancing out the window.

"Hey, yo!" a voice called out, way too close for comfort, as a shadowy figure cut across the front lawn, heading toward the street. "Russo!"

Russo
.

Son of a bitch
.

It couldn't be, could it?

Dante parted the blind again, watching as the man across the street paused at the sound of that name. He waited for the other guy to join him, the two of them chatting before going their separate ways.

They needed to get out of there.

As soon as both men went inside, Dante slipped out of the house, Umberto right on his heels. Panic wafted from him, his eyes darting around, his steps hurried, while Dante took the time to lock the house up again.

"Don't bother," Umberto hissed back at him. "We've gotta go. This neighborhood is full of Brazzis. I'm talking
top-level
Brazzis. We can't be caught here."

Dante said nothing, his gaze sweeping along the numbers affixed to the front of the house before trekking back to the car. He slid into the passenger seat, barely getting the door closed before they sped away from the neighborhood. Umberto was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive back into the city, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel as he kept glancing in the rearview mirror, like he expected something. Silence grew into something more, that suffocating cloud of distrust forming. Something was off about it. Something was
rotten
.

"What did you do?" Dante asked, his voice serious.

"Nothing."

His answer was immediate.

"What did you do, Bert?" Before he could once again spout out with
'nothing'
, Dante said, "You lie to me again and I swear to God, I'll run this car off the fucking bridge with both of us in it."

Umberto hesitated.

"Nothing," he said as he settled back into his seat. "Just a little gas leak."

Dante closed his eyes. A gas leak. The house was uninhabited. The gas would build and build, undisturbed. It was like setting a bomb dead center of Brazzi territory. All it needed was a spark and
boom
.

Dante said nothing more as they drove straight into the city, turning north after the bridge, heading up to Westchester County. Dante's car was still parked somewhere down in Little Italy, but he didn't say a word about it, staying silent as they made the trip to the Galante house. Umberto pulled his car beside Genna's BMW, still parked along the driveway like some sort of morbid lawn ornament.

Dante headed straight inside, leaving the door open for Umberto. Primo met them in the foyer. "Any problems?"

"None," Umberto said, shutting the front door behind him. "There was nothing there. No sign of anyone. And nobody noticed us that I could tell. We were in and out."

"Good." Primo's gaze turned to Dante. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Dante said.

"He was with a girl," Umberto said as he smacked Dante on the back. "You know how he is."

"Ah, yes." Primo's expression softened, something akin to pride shining from his eyes for the first time since Dante had returned, like finally something felt familiar to him. Finally something reminded him of
his
Dante. "It's good to see you."

Dante didn't respond, and his father didn't wait for him to, heading back into his office. Umberto lingered in the foyer, looking like he wanted to join Primo but was hesitant to leave Dante.

"I should head back to the city," Dante said. "Get back to what I was doing."

Umberto laughed. "Or
who
you were doing, right?"

"Right." Dante hesitated, staring at his father's open office door when Umberto strolled that way. "Can I ask you something, Bert?"

Umberto turned. "What's up?"

"You said you tracked Genna's phone. You ever track
mine
?"

"Of course not."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Not even when I was missing? You didn't think, you know, you might've been able to track it to find me?"

"Didn't really think about it."

Dante nodded as he left, not having much else to say. He took the subway back into the city, in a daze, lost in thought, stepping out of the station in Little Italy, down the street from Casato. He pulled out his phone as he strolled along, his eyes on the screen as he sought out a number, dialing it.

"New Jersey Natural Gas."

"I need to report a leak," Dante said, stalling on the street corner not far from Gabriella's apartment. "It's at a house in a suburb outside of Elizabeth."

Dante rattled off the address, hoping he remember the numbers right and was sending them to the correct place.

"We'll send a crew out right away," the woman said. "Can I get your name?"

Dante hung up when she asked that, staring at his phone for a second before dropping it to the sidewalk, stomping on it, crushing it.

Picking up the remnants, he tossed it in the closest trash bin before continuing on, heading to the bar.

He needed a damn drink.

* * *

T
he first cell
phone Genna ever had was a hot pink Motorola Razr. A flip phone. She remembered talking on it all hours of the night, not having to worry about her father picking up the line from somewhere else in the house. Her ringtone had perpetually stayed
Hollaback Girl
, a fact that drove everyone around her insane.

After that came smartphones and new ringtones every week.

Always a song. Always music.

Never the obnoxious generic beeping.

So why the hell did she hear it?

"What the fuck is that noise?" she asked, scrunching up her nose as she glanced around the kitchen, sitting on the counter beside the stove. Matty was cooking burgers in a pan. Nothing special, just some frozen patties, but she was so hungry she wouldn't complain. Compared to what she'd scrounged up for lunch, it was practically a gourmet meal.

"Banjos," Matty said, pointing at the dingy little AM/FM radio on the other side of the counter, one he'd dug out of a closet in an attempt to fill the silence. "It was all I could get to come in."

"No, I'm not talking about the freaky
Deliverance
bullshit," she said. "That beep-bee-bee-boop noise."

He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out far enough to see it. "Not coming from me."

Shit
.

Genna dropped down from the counter and ran out of the kitchen, skidding to a stop in the foyer. Her cheap flip phone lay on the stand, glowing bright, steadily ringing. She snatched it up, flipping it open, pressing buttons in a panic, not sure which one would answer it. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Chris down at
Jerry's
. Can I speak to—?"